The Echo
"Today at 5:00 PM, Modi has asked everyone to come to their windows, balconies, and rooftops to make some noise -- ring bells, beat thalis (metal plates), blow conch shells, clap our hands," my mother announced during one of our daily phone calls.
"Why? To ward off Corona?" I found myself asking, realizing both the incredulity of the question and the probability of this scenario actually playing out in India. India is the land of magical realism, a place where the mundane is never too far removed from the fantastic. It is a place where life is firmly rooted in the ever-present reality of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and corruption. Yet, the supernatural lurks at every street corner promising escape and oblivion.
"Jaani na, kintu hoteo paare." (I don't know, but it is possible.) My mother went on to elaborate that some times loud noises create reverberations that can ward off evil spirits. "Why else do temples and churches ring their bells and mosques broadcast their aajans?" she asked, rhetorically. She clearly had spent some time thinking about the implications of the communal noise-making, cutting across religious lines, so I bit my tongue. Instead, I said, rather mildly, "I have never heard of such a thing."
You see, despite my education and experiences, I am not completely impervious to the superstitions and old wives' tales that are part of everyday Indian life. I feel the need to pull over to the side of the road if a black cat (or any cat, for that matter) crosses my path. If someone happens to sneeze as a member of the family is getting ready to leave the house, I have to make sure that they come back inside the house before continuing with their journey. And yes, I am convinced that the Warriors' current misfortune in the NBA is because they changed their venue from the Oracle Arena to the Chase Center. So, that superstition-believing, unquestioning part of my brain can see why the idea of warding off Corona virus by ringing bells and blowing conch shells may seem plausible to people.
My mother reminded me that the practice of using sound to ward of evil spirits is not new. Indeed, growing up in Kolkata, I remember hearing the trumpet call of the sankha (conch) echoing from nearby shanty towns amidst summer thunderstorms. It was explained to us that people without a solid roof over their heads blew the conch to keep the lightning and storm from destroying their makeshift homes. No one questioned whether this was a viable solution to the problem of urban homelessness. And no one denied those with so little in life of the illusion that they had the supernatural ability to stave off natural disasters with their conch shells.
The use of sound to signal distress or discord was an overused metaphor in old Bollywood movies. A frequent technique entailed all the bells in the village temple ringing in unison to foreshadow some kind of danger to the main character. A nuanced use of sound as a supernatural force can be found in E.M. Forster's A Passage to India. The echo in the Marabar Caves has an inexplicable origin -- it could be the hallucination of an overwrought English woman in the Indian heat or the natural phenomena within a small space enclosed by stone walls -- yet, it haunts Adela Quested and Mrs. Moore long after they have left the location and comes to symbolize the mystery and inscrutability of India that is at the heart of the novel. Forster himself explained that he kept the details of what happened in the caves and the echo therein deliberately vague to reflect the "muddle" that was India.
Almost a hundred years after the publication of A Passage to India, it appears that sound continues to play a magical role in Indian life. Following Prime Minister Modi's exhortation, millions of Indians, including my mother, rang bells, beat kitchen utensils, blew conch shells, and clapped their hands at 5:00 PM on Mar. 22nd. Come to find out, the Prime Minister had asked people to do this to show their appreciation for healthcare workers, not to ward off Corona, but who knows, the echo from so many noisemakers may have created a protective barrier against the outbreak of the virus? In a country of 1.3 billion, one truly needs a miracle like that to stem the spread of the disease.
"Why? To ward off Corona?" I found myself asking, realizing both the incredulity of the question and the probability of this scenario actually playing out in India. India is the land of magical realism, a place where the mundane is never too far removed from the fantastic. It is a place where life is firmly rooted in the ever-present reality of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and corruption. Yet, the supernatural lurks at every street corner promising escape and oblivion.
"Jaani na, kintu hoteo paare." (I don't know, but it is possible.) My mother went on to elaborate that some times loud noises create reverberations that can ward off evil spirits. "Why else do temples and churches ring their bells and mosques broadcast their aajans?" she asked, rhetorically. She clearly had spent some time thinking about the implications of the communal noise-making, cutting across religious lines, so I bit my tongue. Instead, I said, rather mildly, "I have never heard of such a thing."
You see, despite my education and experiences, I am not completely impervious to the superstitions and old wives' tales that are part of everyday Indian life. I feel the need to pull over to the side of the road if a black cat (or any cat, for that matter) crosses my path. If someone happens to sneeze as a member of the family is getting ready to leave the house, I have to make sure that they come back inside the house before continuing with their journey. And yes, I am convinced that the Warriors' current misfortune in the NBA is because they changed their venue from the Oracle Arena to the Chase Center. So, that superstition-believing, unquestioning part of my brain can see why the idea of warding off Corona virus by ringing bells and blowing conch shells may seem plausible to people.
My mother reminded me that the practice of using sound to ward of evil spirits is not new. Indeed, growing up in Kolkata, I remember hearing the trumpet call of the sankha (conch) echoing from nearby shanty towns amidst summer thunderstorms. It was explained to us that people without a solid roof over their heads blew the conch to keep the lightning and storm from destroying their makeshift homes. No one questioned whether this was a viable solution to the problem of urban homelessness. And no one denied those with so little in life of the illusion that they had the supernatural ability to stave off natural disasters with their conch shells.
The use of sound to signal distress or discord was an overused metaphor in old Bollywood movies. A frequent technique entailed all the bells in the village temple ringing in unison to foreshadow some kind of danger to the main character. A nuanced use of sound as a supernatural force can be found in E.M. Forster's A Passage to India. The echo in the Marabar Caves has an inexplicable origin -- it could be the hallucination of an overwrought English woman in the Indian heat or the natural phenomena within a small space enclosed by stone walls -- yet, it haunts Adela Quested and Mrs. Moore long after they have left the location and comes to symbolize the mystery and inscrutability of India that is at the heart of the novel. Forster himself explained that he kept the details of what happened in the caves and the echo therein deliberately vague to reflect the "muddle" that was India.
Almost a hundred years after the publication of A Passage to India, it appears that sound continues to play a magical role in Indian life. Following Prime Minister Modi's exhortation, millions of Indians, including my mother, rang bells, beat kitchen utensils, blew conch shells, and clapped their hands at 5:00 PM on Mar. 22nd. Come to find out, the Prime Minister had asked people to do this to show their appreciation for healthcare workers, not to ward off Corona, but who knows, the echo from so many noisemakers may have created a protective barrier against the outbreak of the virus? In a country of 1.3 billion, one truly needs a miracle like that to stem the spread of the disease.
Love it
ReplyDeleteLove your writing..I can almost see the scene unfolding in front of my eyes
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